flavours of changing seasons

We shared our olive oil, agraz and the Tinte wine with our friend Jeremy, a young chef who has done stints at Noma and Dinner both 2 Michelin Star destinations, and is now opening up his own restaurant Ikoyi. He is amazingly creative with flavours and has heard lots about Fundo Meza for many years…so he is the perfect person to explore different dishes using our ingredients. Joy Rose, part of the vidacycle team and culinary crafter, also made some simpler and super delicious concoctions for starters and a salad. Our friend Claudia also took all these great photos.

Jeremy made crisped chicken thigh, with agraz brown butter emulsion, and cashew tahini in a cabbage taco and a ‘grapes through the seasons’ dessert, both were indescribably good. We all just sat there in silence for a few minutes, stunned and humbled by the wonderful flavours. The whole evening brought out the power of good quality food and the wholehearted wonder in feeling connected to the land.

You can hear more about Joy’s recipes and thoughts here. Jeremy also talked us through the way he approached each dish…

The inspiration for the pear dish is the change of seasons, the evolution of the grapes from unripe, tangy and sharp, to sweet, rich and fermented. The hot and cold elements, the chilled verjus (agraz) pears set against the warm pears stewed in mulled Tinte wine caramel is intended to bring out dominant flavours for the two seasons- refreshing, zingy and cool, versus spiced and warming. The thyme crumble gives the dish some crunch, the slight salinity brings out all the other sweetness, and the fresh thyme cuts through everything subtly, cooling it all down and giving the dish a unique hint of savoury.

The chicken dish was just for fun, to taste like a taco but with the complex richness of the agraz brown butter emulsion. I liked the idea of “hiding” everything inside the translucent cabbage leaf. You bite into it and underneath there are all these flavours: the rice roasted cashew tahini, the crispy chicken skin and juicy meat, and then the mildly acidic but butterscotch flavour of the sauce, with some sharpness from the capers and fragrance from the fresh parsley. It’s a complete dish and well balanced, also looks pretty cool.